Information theory explanation of the fluctuation theorem, maximum entropy production and self-organized criticality in non-equilibrium stationary states

Roderick C. Dewar

Published 2000-05-23, updated 2002-12-13Version 3

Jaynes' information theory formalism of statistical mechanics is applied to the stationary states of open, non-equilibrium systems. The key result is the construction of the probability distribution for the underlying microscopic phase space trajectories. Three consequences of this result are then derived : the fluctuation theorem, the principle of maximum entropy production, and the emergence of self-organized criticality for flux-driven systems in the slowly-driven limit. The accumulating empirical evidence for these results lends support to Jaynes' formalism as a common predictive framework for equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics.